Status Updates From Eyes Like the Sea

CH 23: A mocking smile suddenly lighted up her face, a smile from which a man can read a whole chapter in a moment. That is something like stenography.

A thousand mocking fish-tailed nixies were wriggling about in those sea-like eyes.

[3]: and associate it at once with the popular ballad sung from one end of the kingdom to the other, and which begins, "Hoz Türr Pizta puskát!" ("Pizta Türr he brings his musket!")

In those days war was our universal prayer. And the following year actually brought it. Napoleon III.'s historical new year's greeting settled the dread destiny of the year.

[This comic still exists, but M. Jókai is no longer editor.]

[2] For instance, to the question, "What shall a Hungarian man do now?" the answer was, "
Várjon és türjön Wait and suffer;
but by a printer's error the "türjön" became "türr jön,"
which the reader, in his own mind,
would read as Türr jön /Let Türr come"....

CH 22: [1]I borrowed the idea of starting a weekly comic paper under the title of Ustökös. And this paper gave me something to do for the next 15 years. During all that time it had great influence. With a preliminary and a supplementary censureship to deal with, it was only possible to say a word of truth or a word of encouragement in verse or by way of anecdote. Sometimes a printer's error served our turn instead.

Ch 20: Here we both gave way to merriment once more. Again I urged upon my visitor to speak in German, and we could then perhaps get along more easily, but he only replied, "Muszaj!" Well, if he knows even that Hungarian word, I thought, he must have his own way, that's all.

Ch 20: "All through the war I was interned at Temesvar with my squadron. No occasion for displaying valour. Cavalry behind trenches. My comrades all on the battle-field"—he made a swift motion with his hand.
...they fought bravely, whilst we horsemen besieged in the fortress might"—here he put the tips of his thumbs between his teeth and puffed out his cheeks...

(my ancestors lived near Temesvar)

Ch 19: "No! no! En akarom magyariul beszélni"—and at the same time he made as though he were ducking the head of a refractory urchin in a basin of soapsuds.

"Akarok," I good-humouredly corrected him.

"No! no! Akarok is the indefinite mood, akarom the definite mood; and I want to speak Hungarian definitely."

I was forced to acknowledge to myself that his logic was stronger than his grammar.

LOL!!!!!

CH 18: "In a little house loving hearts are nearer to each other than in a large palace."

***"When a man has such brilliant hopes, want is no affliction. It will be over soon, he thinks. But to enter upon misery with the knowledge that it will last till death, is beyond the power of resignation."****

Ch 14: "Ten head of oxen indeed! For the sake of this peasant I had sacrificed my whole existence, the world in which I had lived, the respect of my acquaintances, my ease and comfort. I had made the earnest resolve to become a peasant woman for his sake, to work, do without things, suffer penury, & when once I had recovered my property, to give it all to him, and the wretched creature had bartered me for ten oxen!"

Ch 8. Bessie: The whole world condemns and tramples upon me, and yet I have offended nobody, not even in thought. You are the only one I have injured, bitterly injured, so it is from you that I must seek protection."

Ch 8: "Oh, I am no longer Madame Bagotay, but Madame Peter Gyuricza!"
"What on earth do you mean? Mrs. Gyuricza! The wife of a herdsman?"
"They haven't written to you from home?"
"It is a long time since I received a letter from home."
"But this was a scandal which set seven counties in an uproar; there has been nothing like it since the French Revolution—and you call yourself the editor of a newspaper!"

Ch 5 [3]: nay that they should even develop the ideally beautiful, poetry itself, from the life of the common people.... As belonging to this camp of ours I must also reckon Sigismund Czakó... and finally Anthony Csengery, the editor of the Pesti Hirlap. Amongst our older writers also, Vörösmarty and Bajza watched over us..; but it was Ignatius Nagy who befriended us, and of him I have the most pleasant recollections

Ch 5 [2]: Hitherto it had been the endeavour of Hungarian writers to write in a style which was distinct from the language of ordinary life. Our group, on the other hand, started the idea that it was just those very constructions, expressions,and modes of thought employed in every-day life that Hungarian writers ought to take as the fundamental principle of their writing;

Ch 5: Hungarian writers: [1] We read nothing but French books. Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" and Tocqueville's "Democracy" were our bibles. Petöfi worshipped Beranger, I had found my ideal in Victor Hugo.... This school might easily have become dangerous to us had not its influence fortunately coincided with the opening up of a new and hitherto unexplored field—popular literature....